$136K for 4 custom-built couches an 'investment,' says N.L. minister

Four historical sofas that will be custom built forNewfoundland and Labrador's renovated Colonial Building will cost the provincial government almost $140,000, tender documents show.

The four Bourne couches large, circular sofas are recreations of Victorian-era furniture, and will be used as centrepieces inside the Colonial Building when it is reopened to the public next year.

"These are not sofas," said Steve Crocker, the minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts and Recreation. "These are four, Victorian-era 1850 pieces of furniture, large pieces, being built by a Newfoundland and Labrador company."

"Yeah, for your eye, it looks like draperies or it looks like a chair, but this is not a chair or draperies you can just go buy off of a shelf. The last time that they were manufactured for us, would have been 1850."

A contract was awarded in November to Redwood Construction, a company based in Mount Pearl, for $136,265. That company was the only bidder.

The company will deliver three smaller circular couches, 1.2 metres wide and 1.2 metres tall,and one larger couchtwice as long.

According to a provincial government spokesperson, visitors will be able to sit on the couches when the Colonial Building is open.

The provincial government is also spending an additional $40,000 on drapes for the building.

Crocker calls the purchases, part of a $400,000 budget for furnishing the inside of the Colonial Building, an "investment" in tourism in the province even as the provincial government's finance minister issues warnings thata child born in the province "owes debt for its birthright."

According to Crocker, the government has been able to stick to its $22-million budget for the Colonial Building renovation, a renovation he calls "amazing."

"I'm going to tell you, people are going to want to see what's in that building," he said. "I think it's very important to our economy."

"This is about opening a huge potential provincial historic site."

The $136,000 spent on the historical couch recreation is about as much as the provincial government pays one new salaried general practitioner at several health-care centres.

Local work

Renovations to the Colonial Building are on track to finish in the summer, according to the provincial government.

Crocker saidabout 80 per centof the work inside the Colonial Building has been done by Newfoundland and Labrador contractors.

"We're so fortunatethat this work can even be done in Newfoundland and Labrador," Crocker said, adding that when the plans to renovate the Colonial Building were first launched, officials thought they'd have to go outside the province to get the job done.

Redwood Construction, the company building the four couches,has also won a $1.5-million contract for interior trim and surface repair work inside the building. According to provincial tender documents, they've also submitted the only bids for the creation of Windsor chairs and interior finishing work on the building.

"It's great to see our heritage carpenters working," he added.

"For us to be able to keep these companies busy, and these companies have that expertise in this small province, it's amazing, and it's going to open up more opportunities for these companies when somebody sees, I think, the type of work that these contractors have been able to do."

Crocker saidthe Colonial Buildingwill be open in time for Come Home Year celebrations in 2022. He said the government is considering holding some sittings of the House of Assembly in the building when it is completed.

"Mainly it'll become a place for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians,people from anywhere in the world to go and look and explore the history of Newfoundland and Labrador governance, because it is truly unique."

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